Bon Appetit!
It's been a year of good food and great wine. If anything, the past 12 months showed that, although a table with views of Sydney Harbour perks the spirit up, the most satisfying meals can be had in simple, unpretentious surroundings.
Most expensive meal:
The priciest meal we had was a $600-for-two degustation at Jaan, with many baby courses. The views atop Swissotel were gorgeous. Sadly, we thought long and hard, and cannot remember a single dish of note. It was that memorable. It was....aahh...nice modern French cuisine, I guess. But you don't spend the equivalent of a ticket to Sydney to have nice food. You want to be swept off your feet, blown away. Which is what we experienced with this next dish:
The "food this weird shouldn't taste this good" prize:
Snail risotto at Menotti's in the city. I didn't know what possessed me to choose this dish. Maybe it's because I had eaten their still-charming crab linguine one time too many. It was magic. Several plump escargots swimming in what seems more like watery arborio porridge than risotto. It was the taste equivalent of seeing your favourite football team kicking in a tie-breaking goal. Yessss! Whoever thought of marrying garlic-butter, rice and snails deserves a medal.
Top taste highlights of 2005:
1. Foie gras sushi at Wahiro. Heaven in a mouthful. The tiny hole-in-wall eatery has expanded next door, but if one restaurant shows that more customers doesn't dilute the quality of cooking, this is it.
2. Grilled steaks from Hog's Breath Cafe, Port Stephens. Humungous, tender slabs of meat to bring out your inner carnivore.
3. Lobster sashimi with wasabi at Sydney Fish Markets. One of the best things to happen to our tastebuds. It was not such a good thing for the poor lobster, who was obliviously swimming in the tank only minutes ago.
4. Miso cod at Ember. Melt-in-your-mouth slivers of fish, married perfectly with dark miso paste.
5. Crispy pork belly at Aria, Sydney. Not quite the same as roast fatty pork at your hawker centre. This version sings with a thick, satisfying crunch of the skin, and sticky, chewy soft flesh underneath. It did not hurt that our table had full-frontal views of the Opera House.
6. Nasu dengaku at Go Bungai. Finally, a veg entry! This traditional Japanese dish of fried-then-grilled eggplant with miso paste will melt even the most hardened of meat-lovers and eggplant-phobes.
7. Pepper crab in cream sauce at Seafood Paradise. So what if the setting is a coffee-shop unit in the deep, dark belly of an industrial estate, and you eat alongside grimy mechanics? The taste of the sauce leaves us speechless.
8. Fresh lamb cutlets cooked at home. Merely fried in butter and sprinkled with salt. Simplicity never tasted so good.
9. Chubby Hubby ice cream from Ben & Jerry's. It's good. I can't explain. Just go try it.
10. Popiah rolls from Qiji. "Perfect!", declares Boy of the rice-paper rolls with radish and shrimp fillings.
Here's to another year of new food discoveries. Bon Appetit!
Most expensive meal:
The priciest meal we had was a $600-for-two degustation at Jaan, with many baby courses. The views atop Swissotel were gorgeous. Sadly, we thought long and hard, and cannot remember a single dish of note. It was that memorable. It was....aahh...nice modern French cuisine, I guess. But you don't spend the equivalent of a ticket to Sydney to have nice food. You want to be swept off your feet, blown away. Which is what we experienced with this next dish:
The "food this weird shouldn't taste this good" prize:
Snail risotto at Menotti's in the city. I didn't know what possessed me to choose this dish. Maybe it's because I had eaten their still-charming crab linguine one time too many. It was magic. Several plump escargots swimming in what seems more like watery arborio porridge than risotto. It was the taste equivalent of seeing your favourite football team kicking in a tie-breaking goal. Yessss! Whoever thought of marrying garlic-butter, rice and snails deserves a medal.
Top taste highlights of 2005:
1. Foie gras sushi at Wahiro. Heaven in a mouthful. The tiny hole-in-wall eatery has expanded next door, but if one restaurant shows that more customers doesn't dilute the quality of cooking, this is it.
2. Grilled steaks from Hog's Breath Cafe, Port Stephens. Humungous, tender slabs of meat to bring out your inner carnivore.
3. Lobster sashimi with wasabi at Sydney Fish Markets. One of the best things to happen to our tastebuds. It was not such a good thing for the poor lobster, who was obliviously swimming in the tank only minutes ago.
4. Miso cod at Ember. Melt-in-your-mouth slivers of fish, married perfectly with dark miso paste.
5. Crispy pork belly at Aria, Sydney. Not quite the same as roast fatty pork at your hawker centre. This version sings with a thick, satisfying crunch of the skin, and sticky, chewy soft flesh underneath. It did not hurt that our table had full-frontal views of the Opera House.
6. Nasu dengaku at Go Bungai. Finally, a veg entry! This traditional Japanese dish of fried-then-grilled eggplant with miso paste will melt even the most hardened of meat-lovers and eggplant-phobes.
7. Pepper crab in cream sauce at Seafood Paradise. So what if the setting is a coffee-shop unit in the deep, dark belly of an industrial estate, and you eat alongside grimy mechanics? The taste of the sauce leaves us speechless.
8. Fresh lamb cutlets cooked at home. Merely fried in butter and sprinkled with salt. Simplicity never tasted so good.
9. Chubby Hubby ice cream from Ben & Jerry's. It's good. I can't explain. Just go try it.
10. Popiah rolls from Qiji. "Perfect!", declares Boy of the rice-paper rolls with radish and shrimp fillings.
Here's to another year of new food discoveries. Bon Appetit!
posted by Erica Tay at 11:59 PM
1 Comments:
I surfed on in with the search results from a search: "escargots blogurl:blogspot.com". Yum yum, escargots! ;)
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